Waste collections in Barnsley now ‘back on track’ councillors told
Around 60,000 blue bins across the district were left uncollected at the start of the year
Councillors have been told waste collections in Barnsley are back on schedule after disruption over the Christmas and New Year period.
At a full council meeting on Wednesday, February 5, Barnsley Council’s cabinet spokesperson for environment and highways, Councillor James Higginbottom, said temporary staff shortages had led to missed blue bin collections in early January.
He told councillors that around 60,000 blue recycling bins were left uncollected at the start of the year after the way bank holidays fell meant the service lost several normal working days.
Councillor Higginbottom said the council decided not to return for missed blue bins for a two-week period in order to restore normal collections more quickly.
He said attempting to collect every missed bin would have left some households waiting weeks longer, with bins remaining on streets while crews tried to catch up.
The cabinet member said the council is now actively recruiting additional staff to stabilise the service and ensure it is fully resourced ahead of the return of garden waste collections in March.
He also highlighted the scale of the operation, telling councillors that 30 to 40 waste crews are deployed each day to collect around 115,000 bins a week across the borough. He said factors such as staff absence, vehicle availability, route delays and capacity pressures could affect collections on any given day.
However, Councillor Higginbottom said additional staffing and the rollout of new in-cab technology should help collections proceed as scheduled going forward.
In response to questions from councillors, he said the authority would review how it plans for disruption around bank holidays such as Christmas and Good Friday, adding that lessons had been learned from this year’s disruption.